In today's Internet Protocol multimedia subsystem (IMS) network environment, network elements that provide information such as the accounting requests (ACRs) defined in the Diameter computer networking protocol for the generation of call detail records (CDRs) rely on local host storage for buffering ACRs until the charging collection function (CCF) system responsible for CDR generation is available for processing the data.
Local buffering of the ACRs results in inadequate buffering capacity if local resources are insufficient. There is a need to ensure sufficient buffering capacity for all IMS network elements.
The local resources used for buffering at the network elements often lack fault tolerance or have insufficient fault tolerance. There is a need to guarantee fault tolerance for buffering at IMS network elements.
In the event of a host failure, data that is buffered locally at the host is most likely lost. There is a need to prevent the loss of buffered data during a host failure.
In a virtualized environment where a host virtual machine can be moved from one location to another, it is furthermore important that data that is buffered at the time of the move is not lost.